For the extended project we are tasked with creating a series of images tying into Face Value. I've contemplated many options of what to focus on but being inspired by photographer Nico Froelich I've decided to look into the theme environmental portraiture. I will be documenting my local area within South East London and possibly other areas like Acton or Hammersmith: north west of the river. After taking a short trip to Barbican I took an image of two men running to catch an event happening in the Barbican Centre (which can be seen on the Face Value page, Gordon Parks recreation) and got me really interested in capturing people in motion. I like how they aren't clear and I'm considering using motion blur in this project to make my photography style more unique to myself. I enjoy listening to music and playing basketball so I might use them as motifs and incorporate them within my images. For basketball I'll be going to different basketball courts and in particular Wolverine Court - a local court decorated with cool graffiti art and murals located outside a block of council flats and social housing estates. This gives me multiple opportunities to not only to just take photos but also portray a story of the people who live within and make up the community. I enjoy listening to hiphop and the many individual styles which rappers have including the other artistic skills which they hold developing rap culture and the rap scene. Recently, I've been into Kendrick Lamar who is a very accomplished rapper from Compton, California (a heavily impoverished area often associated with gangs and gun crime). His early life has had heavy influence on his lyrical craftsmanship and widely praised storytelling. He directs his music videos in a way which creates a cinematographic feeling to them and his album covers have a unique style distinct to him. I'm inspired to try recreate a similar aura around my images as he does to his own.
Dalston High Street 📍
Going into this project I had an idea of what I was going to do, but not everything goes to plan. So last minute I had and idea to move to the theme of high streets, seemingly a great place for street photography with all the movement and people you can see. However, moving forward with the project I just went out and forgot what I was aiming for. With a limited time, the sun soon to start to go down, I took some trains to Dalston. The images I took don't really impress me and after sifting through all the photos I was struggling to find images that I like. But the ones above are the ones that I thought looked the best. What went well I think is how some of the images are composed, I like how the photo with the brunch sign is tilted but behind it in the distance theres two people talking. I like that image specifically because it also has leading lines drawing your eyes to the subject in the distance. However, there's a lot that I could've done differently. It would've been better if i followed my plan and what I prepared beforehand to go off of. The subject selection could be much better and I could’ve gone up to people and asked to take photos of them so I could achieve the feeling in the images that I'm striving for, but thats an area that I'm not yet comfortable with and acknowledge I could improve on. Some of the images are also overexposed and frankly I just didn't take enough photographs. I think when I next go out to take photos I will focus on on the subject matter, what colours and patterns I include, the lighting, camera angle and brightness of the image.
Acton Park📍
These images were taken when I met up with some of my friends in Acton. What I like about these images is that they have a playful feel and some are also are quite ethereal. Some of these photos I captured with a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P10 (a small travel camera from 2003) and even though I put in much less effort to take these images I much rather prefer these images over the photos I took in Dalston. I really like old camera quality because it captures a very nostalgic feel reminding me of my childhood when those types of cameras where more often used. What I think went well is the motion blur in some of the images whether it be the camera moving or the subject moving which was what I was trying to achieve which was also made possible because of the old cybershot as has quite a long shutter speed when taking images in the dark. What I think I could've done better when taking these images was for some of them are too close and I would've liked to photograph more of some of the subjects.
Taking an extra step
As I progressed with this extended project I was reorganising my room and I was moving a 3D printer which I haven't used in many months. In an effort to get back into printing, I launched UltiMaker Cura (a 3D printing software) and dropped a photo from my desktop into it. I then downloaded the g.code onto a SD card and printed it out. When printing photos the darker parts of the image are printed thicker and the lighter parts are printed thinner allowing a range of shades when held up to a light source creating an image - also known as a lithophane. At that moment where I took the print off the buildplate and placed it up against my window I had the idea to use lithophanes as one of my physical mediums for photography. As they are printed in a flat buildplate the back of the print is flat and gives the possibility to add colours with watercolour paints. The only drawback is the time it takes to print an image (a 6 x 6 cm photo took 2 hours to print) and the time taken to print isn't directly proportional to the size the image is printed.